2008 convention season

[Incog Neato]

d000000000000des, anyone heading to any cons this year?

Me, I'll be heading to the Penny Arcade Expo this year! My first time at a gaming convention!!!! Hope there'll be a lot of swag! Me loves to get me free goodies. :B

.......

I also hope the BO will be under control there. ://////

[FM-77AV]

What's BO?

[Ascended Mermaid]

Body Odor. ...and this account's first non-spam post, apparently.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

Assuming all things go according to plan, I will be totally Sugoiconning it up again this year.

[Gamemusicfreak]

I haven't been to a convention in six years! For the last four years I've been going to game music concerts all over the place. Next up is the Distant Worlds Final Fantasy concert this weekend.

[Grave]

Rumor has it that I might be returning to Otakon this year! ...but it's far more likely that you'll find me on a beach in Florida instead. I could live with that.

I have no plans to attend Anime Boston, I do happen to live here if anyone's swinging by.

[Incog Neato]

Feb 27, 2008 11:10:48 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I just went to Katsucon in DC two weekends ago, and will be going to Otakon in Baltimore later this year. That's the only one I'm specifically planning on attending, though. A lot of people have been pressuring me to go to PAX, too, but I actively dislike Penny Arcade, so that's probably not the best idea. (:

-Tom

Awww. Come join us! I'm not exactly fond of PA either but I'm going for the atmosphere and also to see what a gaming con is like. ^^; I mean, I can't imagine it being full of girls with signs that read "GLOMP ME!" or have overweight cosplayers in skimpy outfits or silly TEE-HEE-HEE squealy con-goers squeeing at yaoi doujinshi/manga/cosplayers OR thousands of Bleach, FF, Naruto or whatever anime is hot cosplayers at the moment. :P

Instead, I believe I will see an ocean of guys and their DSs. :B I wonder how crazy Pictochat would be in a place like that. XD

Oh -- sort of off-topic but at the Toronto concert of Video Games Live, we were asked to hold up our cell phones, DSs, lighters - whatever would give off a glow of sorts for the encore - and for some reason, the left side of the orchestra/floor had the most DSs. ^^;

[FM-77AV]

What exactly do you do at a convention? Talk about stuff with strangers? Look at things? I've never been to one or read about what they're about or anything. I'm completely in the dark here.

[Incog Neato]

I never go to cons alone so most of the time, I'm hanging out with my friends, walking around the con, checking out some panels and trying very hard not to spend money in the dealers' room.

Some folks over at the Gateworld forum tried to encourage me to go to the Vancouver Stargate con a while back even though I said I didn't really want to since I'd be going alone. Apparently, quite a few of them go alone and then end up making friends and stuff. ._.~

I suppose it's a great place to meet new people and socialize but I'm not very outgoing and can't make intelligent small talk. :P

Aw man, I want one of those Ys t-shirts! I'd totally wear it to PAX. I need that one that has that blurb about why Y <apostrophe> s is wrong. XD (Damn your auto-correcting board! >:E)

[Grave]

Feb 27, 2008 17:10:56 GMT -5 FM-77AV said:

What exactly do you do at a convention? Talk about stuff with strangers? Look at things? I've never been to one or read about what they're about or anything. I'm completely in the dark here.

My crew's typical Otakon behavior is as follows:

-Check out the schedule
-Be disappointed that nothing good is showing
-Return to hotel room, get drunk
-Find game room, scope out fighting game selection
-Hang out with internet people, try not to act too drunk
-Play games, continue drinking
-Catch some screenings
-Occasionally make inappropriate passes at girls too young to be looking at
-Throw up

Repeat the following day, be too hung over Sunday to do anything, then brave Baltimore traffic! Which is honestly not that bad, but once my car broke down in the middle lanes of I-95 on the way down. Stopped dead with 60+ mph traffic whizzing by on all sides. That was pretty damn scary.

But... yeah. As the years go by I'm less and less interested in what goes on at cons, outside of the gaming, and PAX sounds excellent for that. If I move out to the west coast next year I'm sure I'll go in '09, but it's looking more and more like I'm sticking it out in New England for at least one more year.

[Incog Neato]

Yeah, the older one gets, the more cons become just an (expensive) excuse to hang out with Internet friends. Or even friends that live nearby that just happen to go with you to the con to hang out with Internet friends!

I'm pretty much out of the loop with anime though I'm still reading manga but regardless, I don't really give a flying dung on what's popular at the moment. I also really can't click with the teen crowd anymore so if I were to go to a con, it'd have to be one that doesn't contain hyperactive otaku.

That's not saying that PAX won't have hyperactive nerds but I dunno, I just get the impression it won't have the same annoyances anime conventions have. It'll probably have OTHER annoyances though but I'll deal with that when the time comes. :P

[Varion]

Feb 27, 2008 17:46:41 GMT -5 Incog Neato said:

I'm pretty much out of the loop with anime though I'm still reading manga but regardless, I don't really give a flying dung on what's popular at the moment. I also really can't click with the teen crowd anymore so if I were to go to a con, it'd have to be one that doesn't contain hyperactive otaku.

What's popular? Supaa kawaii shows ^__________^

And no, definitely not. I don't think I'd attend a UK convention unless you paid me a fair bit of money. Grave's agenda sounds pretty fun though.

[kami68k]

I'll go to the Games Convention over here in terms of games, as it's the only real game related event anyway (besides random meetings and stuff). Hope that Dreamcast Scene gets a booth again
As for Manga/Anime, I dunno yet. Probably I'll visit Connichi and take a look at the outside of the Animagic, its way to expensive to get a ticket there, but watching all the cosplayers is fun since many are outside

[harlock]

I just pre-reg'd for Otakon today. This will be my 12th Otakon, and I have to echo the others sentiments about cons now being more about hanging out with long-distance friends...

tho con used to be pretty crazy for me...
www.discarnate.com/yatara/rpx/index.html

[Grave]

Still toying with the idea of going back to Otakon this year. I've been going on and off since 2003. But... I was 19 then. I feel like I'm getting a little bit old for this. Of course, many of you are older than me, so I suppose I'm really not.

If the Florida plans work out, I'll be kicking back on the beach instead of standing in lines with sweaty fatties. I could live with that. But there is definitely fun to be had at cons, this much is true.

[Incog Neato]

d000000000000000000000000des!

PAX IN 6 DAYS!!

BOO-YAH!

[Grave]

Achewood, dammit! Achewood is the best comic strip out there period, online or otherwise. And it has 500% (yes, five hundred percent!) less creepy nerd than xkcd does!

Anyway, I'm not a huge PA fan either (though I am a fan, I... think?) but PAX appeals to me a hell of a lot more than anime cons seem to right now. When the east coast one launches, if it's convenient (i.e. not in NYC) I will likely attend. When I've been at Otakon in the last few years, when I haven't been going back to the hotel to refill my booze containers and take periodic showers to beat the Baltimore heat, I've been in the game room. Or saying things I could live to regret to likely-underaged cosplayers. But that's neither here nor there! A convention designed around video games is a lot more relevant to my interest these days, and I'm glad that someone with the presence of PA managed to organize it well and make it (by most accounts, anyway) quite a fun time. I look forward to nunuu's impressions!

p.s. I did not make it to the beach, but I did go back home to PA and had a good time without sweaty fatties!

[FM-77AV]

Wyrdwad is a right dood. I don't understand how anyone can like that comic. I think it is awful, and contains VERY arrogant characters! I don't see anything funny in that! It's a comic - BASED on arrogance!! I would never want to get near whoever made that comic, that's for damn sure. Arrogance seems to be common in web comics though. I guess the authors turn arrogant, once they start thinking they're famous (even though they obviously are not).

Disgusting.

Oh and yeah, that it has its own convention (even though I still don't get what that is / why they exist / what the point/appeal of them is), is quite surprising. That would certainly be the last place on earth that you would find me, because again, I would never want to get anywhere near the author of that garbage.

[Grave]

Oh no, xkcd is often quite funny and I do appreciate the extremely geeky brand of humor it has, I just think the author has some weird female issues that occasionally make my skin crawl.

Seriously, though, check out Achewood! Gotta start from the beginning though. Get cozy and get ready for something different! Takes a little while to grow on you but when it hits its stride it stays good all the way to the present. Chris Onstad is amazing.

[Incog Neato]

Aug 23, 2008 10:00:30 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I've been asked to attend PAX so many times... but I just can't bring myself to do it! As fun as I'm sure it would be, it's the principle of the matter... because you see, I actively dislike Penny Arcade! I find their webcomic to be largely unfunny and annoying, and the fact that it got its OWN FREAKING CONVENTION is just... mindboggling!

Pssh. d00de, I don't care much about the comic either. I'm going there for Seattle and the atmosphere. I probably won't be going to any PA-related panels. :P